Author Archives: Scott Foglesong

Oh, let’s go out for a nice Sunday brunch! they said. I should have shot myself first. Instead, I said, OK, why not? They knew just the right place, they said, very cool and with great food. I should have … Continue reading →

Earlier this summer a friend came visiting and brought with him two women, a couple of his acquaintance. I did the usual host-y stuff, showed them around the house, made tea, assembled a plate of cookies, indulged in small-talk, exchanged … Continue reading →

My most recent post indulged itself in a paean of praise about the Powell/Pressburger Black Narcissus, a 1947 British movie of rare enchantment, technique, and courageous creativity. In the midst of ooh-ing and aah-ing over the use of color, the … Continue reading →

If I’m a bit groggy and sleep-deprived today, despite having slept in for as long as my kitty cat April would allow (not all that long), it’s all Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s fault. Not that I’m all that interested … Continue reading →

I suppose all of us have a private corner of our listening life that is devoted to something a bit off the beaten path, perhaps something we’re not quite so eager to drop into a tony discussion about the merits … Continue reading →

Tea preparation involves a bit of necessary ritual. I suppose one could be a pig about it all, throw a cup of water into the microwave and then drop in a teabag. But how gauche, how unimaginative, how unperceptive. Settling … Continue reading →

When Shostakovich visited America and Europe as part of a Soviet delegation in 1959, he was repeatedly asked about his opinion of the then-accepted modernist avant-garde of atonal academic serialism. Here is one such response, given to a Polish journalist … Continue reading →

The other night I awoke abruptly after a particularly awful dream that had percolated up from who knows where in my subconscious. It was a memory, not a dreamscape construction, replaying in vivid detail a dreadfully unpleasant woman for whom … Continue reading →

I never ceased to be amazed how people can look at abundance and see privation. Who Murdered Classical Music? shout the writers of doomsday screeds. Declining revenues! cry the big arts institutes. Aging audiences! wail the statisticians. But all of … Continue reading →

Writing an article about a great beloved masterwork of the Western musical tradition is one thing. Writing about a piece that practically nobody knows is another. Writing about a piece that has been run over and left for dead is … Continue reading →